Hong Kong Massage

So many women have stopped and asked did I want a massage I’ve relented.  I’ve opted for the full body massage with foot reflexology, having become quite a fan of reflexology during my time on Langkawi.  What the hell an hour is about £16.  You’d pay about 10 x that in a spa at home. Yes, the surroundings might a bit more salubrious, but I’ve always found massages at home are a little namby-pamby, a bit too soft.  Well not in Asia where they take massages very seriously.  They are seen as proper holistic experiences and can right a whole load of wrongs. 

So I’ve settled in the chair, they take one ouch of my feet and say there’s no way they can do reflexology, unless I get a pedicure, too much hard skin apparently.  So I agree. It’s about another £10  on top. Well the omen laughed.  They even called some else over to look.  There is no shame or politeness here, they thought nothing of me be perfectly aware that the amount of skin they are taking off the bottom of my feet is pretty disgusting.  Well I a was pretty disgusted ( and embarrassed myself). But not enough not to share with you all.  There’s a bice image for you.

Anyway the girl has started on the reflexology bit now and I have to concentrated on not hitting the roof everytime she presses on a knot.

Bye for now

Han x

Singapore Round Two

To make the next move on the trip (Hong Kong) I had to fly back down from Langkawi to Singapore.  Flight times etc, meant that I was to have another 24 hrs in the city.  A good thing as there were some bits I felt I hadn't experienced.
So I booked into the colonial district and mooched around.  This is more of the Singapore I pictured before I travled. Huge sky scrapers, lost of 'city' types spotless streets.  I had lunch on the water front and went back to the hostel for a little sleep.  Walking at about 9 I headed out to experience the recommendations of some I follow on Twitter who happened o mention that day was living in Singapore.  So it was the SkyBar.  Which is a bar, shaped like a boat which sits on top and spans three 57 floor tower blocks.  I felt a bit of a twat walking into a place like that on my own, but thought what the hell, if I worry about that this whole trip I'll miss out on some incredible experiences I'm sure.  So I plan to order a drink take in the view, some pics and leave.
As I'm doing this I get chatting to a Canadian, on R&R from an engineering project in Australia.  He was also on his own and feeling like a sore thumb, so we hung out and had lots to talk about.  So much so we ended up being the last to leave at closing time (not good when the drinks are nearly £20 a pop...and you have to get up for a flight the net morning).

Langkawi Wowie (18 >28.11.11

I haven’t written for ten days. There’s a good reason for this. I’ve been in Langkawi and Island life doesn’t really lend its self to doing anything more taxing than thinking about what end of the beach you’re going to lay for a few hours or where you might eat that night.

It was the ten days I had planned for the start of this trip. A ‘holiday’. Now you could say I’m on a six month holiday but a guy called Chris summed it up. This is backpacking and whilst it is an incredible experience there are times when its far from relaxing. So this was ten days of pure relaxiation. On an island with not much culture so there was no guilt about not visiting the museums, historic sites etc.

I stayed in a place called Zackary Guest house. My bill for ten days stay was £100 and that was for a room to my self, bargain. It was a few bungalow type buildings scattered around and a common room with an honest bar and cans of beer costing 75p. I haven’t yet mentioned this is a duty free island. Oh yes.

Time in Langkawi in a nutshell:

3 x AMAZING massages. At home the masseuse does not get straddle your back on the massage table so she can really get at that deep knot. Thought I was floating after one.

Razzing around the island on mopeds with Georgie, Miranda, Chris and James although I scooted like a nana.

Getting mugged…by monkeys who intimidated me into throwing my bag away from me. They riffled through it tossing the Kindle and camera to one side. Opting to take the bag of twisties (like knick kancks) instead.

Discovering Sunbar and dancing the night away, most nights.

Post clubbing swimming in the ocean , and the phosphorous making it seem like you were swimming in pixie dust.

Night sat on beach with beers with German Chris and Northern Andy discussing politics of the EU which desended into recalling as many Malcom Tucker cusses as possible.

Northern Andy being fantastic company for three days.

Meeting the teachers from Penang having an INCREDIBLE meal, a very competitive game of ‘Who’s in the Bag’, shisha pipes and dancing to Stevie Wonder at Bilabong Bar.

Leaving and feeling the most relaxed I have in a LOOOONG time.

Negative Nora

Hello, just realised those last two posts are pretty negative.  I am having an AMAZING time.  I do realise how utterly fortunate I am to be doing this.  Have done some lovely things since.  Writing those up now.  Well after I've had some breakfast.

Times they're not a changin.

This is going to be written super quickly as I’ve fallen so far behind, I’m now writing what has happened 5 days ago and need to catch-up and start witting at the end of each day.

So in a nutshell:

Botanic Gardens.

OK, nice open spaces, some impressive orchids.

A ‘Margret Thatcher Orchid’ in the ‘VIP Orchid Garden’. I guess they didn’t have a ‘Milk Snatching, Society Crushing, Hateful Old Hag Garden’.

There was also a ‘Nelson Mandela Orchid’ there.  I have no problem with this.

I had been looking forward to a visit to Singapore Zoo.  Now I don’t do zoos as a rule.  Ever since I watched a polar bear pacing back and forth under the sweltering sun  with only a shallow dirty pool of water to paddle in on a school trip to Bristol Zoo.  But, this is 2011 and this is hailed as the ‘World’s Best Zoo’.  Maybe things have changed I think.  Well they have changed, a bit.  But they still suck.  First we arrived and got shuffled towards ‘The Amazing Animal Show’.  One of those mind shrinking displays of over the top fake enthusiasm by a host dressed in jungle gear, continually asking ‘Are we all having a good time?’ And of course the audience get asked this twice because the initial response wasn’t enthusiastic enough.  What followed was a parade of animals that just looked a bit embarrassed to be there.  So was I and left before the end.

Onto a land train wandering through the park.  Now the zoo may ‘have no cages’. But what’s in a name?  Do we honestly believe that the tiger can wander off to see the hippos anytime?  No.  So yes, I didn’t see a barbed wire fence, but the tiger was still behind thick glass, pacing in the same way that polar bear had 25 years ago.  I still don’t do zoos.

Singapore Sling

12 hrs and no sleep later I arrive in Singapore.  Into the air conditioned airport.  I buy a ticket for the shuttle bus into town and while I’m waiting do something which I’m still hanging my head in shame about.  I had a Burger King.  This isn’t the remorse of someone that has broken a diet.  No, vows to eat local when travelling and has poured scorn on those that stick to recognisable chains.  Anyway it was the only place within eyesight of where I was supposed to wait, I’d been told the driver would be calling me any minute and I’m starving.  This is the last time I promise myself.

So the shuttle (£4.50) arrives and we head downtown.  I could have got the MRT (tube equivalent) for a quarter the price, but when arriving in a new place I like to be above ground for a while to get my bearings.

Home for the next two nights was to be the Mitraa Inn on Serangoon Rd in Little India.  A modern hostel, in fact I think I was the first to stay in my room.  I had arrived 2 hrs earlier than the permitted check-in time.  I was in no state to go exploring before a shower so just hung about in the common room.  I got talking to a fellow traveller Jahan from Jasper, Canada.  It turned out we had about the same list of things we wanted to see and do so it made sense to join forces. 

It was now about 1pm, 5 am at home and I’m shattered.  But the best way to deal with jet lag is to press on through and go to bed at a normal local time.  So after a quick shower Jahan and I meet back in the common room to find some food.

Round the corner we found the Lavendar Food Centre.  Around 30 food stalls ,  surrounding 100 picnic tables under a tin roof.  We didn’t commit ourselves too early and  surveyed the stalls as if it was a menu brought to life.  It was hard to choose from satay, dim sum,  pineapple rice etc. But very easy to decided what I wasn’t having, frog leg porridge. And there was me thinking Heston’s Snail porridge was his bonkers originality.  Anyway, we settled on the place with the biggest queue (top tip) for steamed pork dumplings.  Each one of  these glutonus parcels exploded in the mouth.  A little porky, chivey,  broth spilling out before munching on the sweet, savoury tender pork.  As we ate we watched a guy make noodles so expertly it would have been rude not to try…so we had a bowl of those too. 

Tummies sated we headed for the Colonial District and Raffles hotel.  Now, we all know the story, the Singapore Sling was invented in Raffles Singapore. We know it would be  clichéd and touristy to go and have one there, we know it will be extortion, but the lure was too great.  Well readers if any of you ever end up in Singapore and like me you think, ‘what the hell’.  Don’t.  It was everything I thought it would be and less.  Because along with the sickly sweet taste of the pre-made Singapore Sling made on mass and poured from a plastic jug by a miserable barman, you drink in the sour regret of paying £15 for the privilege of knowing you’re a mug.

Anyways.  We pressed onwards. Heading back north to the hostel.  Sod all what the ‘top ten things to do’ leaflets said.  I loved roaming the streets and without a map or guide needing to tell me just knowing from the people and buildings I had moved from the Colonial District into Little China and back to Little India. 

By now I was more than a little tired and walked out.  It was now around 7 and still a boiling 30 degrees.  We reached the hostel and concluded that neither of us was up for a ‘big night’. Had some Indian food and it was off to bed.  Not together obv.

Departure etc.

So after months in the planning the time arrived to put the last few things in the backpack and head off.  The farewell drinks Saturday night were surprisingly tear free.  Well, until Mr Gilby played me the travel playlist he’d created for me.  Sunday Lunch wasn’t so dry though.  Family gathered in the Gwaelod Inn for a final proper Welsh roast dinner. For a while at least. Every time I looked at my mum beginning to well up, my incredible Nephew Rhys said ‘Auntie Hannah’ in the funny little way he says it or my beautiful new niece Katie gave me one of her million watt smiles I was off.  But I was determined not to spend my last couple of hours with the people I love the most in the world sobbing so I kept reminding myself that I was going on the adventure of a lifetime, they would all be here when I got back and 5 ½ months is in fact only 140 days.

Once on the plane I started flicking through the in-flight magazine, as you do.  Duty Free were selling a Lego Stars Wars watch with R2 D2 figure.  Cue tears. The Whiteman residence is scattered with Lego Star Wars stuff, and Rhys doesn’t go anywhere without Padmee clasped in hand or buried in pocket.  Shit, if this stuff was going to set me off I was going to be in trouble.  However the nostalgia trip soon ended as I got talking to my fellow passengers, a very nice gentleman and his mother. It transpired he worked for WAG, in fact BETS my old department.  As soon as he found out I was an ex Edwina Hart minion the moaning started.  Ah, yes I remember why I’m doing this and suddenly have a huge smile on my face.